At Least I Wasn't as Bad as Bin Laden

From The Girl with the White Fur Muff, the first story I ever read from my favorite book, Peter Leroy:

When report cards were handed out at the Babbington Grammar School, some of my classmates fell into a whimpering terror, instinctively cowering and covering their vulnerable spots, as skittish and apprehensive as squirrels. Others began whooping and crowing, pounding one another on the back, and totting up their spoils. At the time it didn’t occur to me to pity the first group, but I certainly envied the second, for my parents considered it a Principle of Child Rearing not to reward my accomplishments in school. When I brought a report card home, I got small praise for even the best of grades, and almost nothing in the way of tangible rewards. My father would say, looking at the best report card in my class, or even in the whole school, “That’s what I expected.” Sometimes Gumma or Guppa would slip me a dollar, or my mother would give me a hug and whisper, “I’m proud of you, Peter,” but these tokens seemed insignificant indeed beside the handsome cash prizes some of my friends collected. Some were paid for meeting certain standards, negotiated with their parents in advance, standards that were often, it seemed to me, quite low for the loot involved. Others were rewarded for showing any improvement at all; quite a few made out pretty well just for getting through six weeks without being sent to the principal’s office; and still others could collect a metal dump truck or a movie pass just for compiling a decent attendance record. It didn’t seem just.  

Of course I had a disastrous relationship to report crd day myself:

It was also while he was in that chair that I brought home another bad report card and he takes the report card, slowly lays it over his heart, leans his head back with his eyes closed, mumbling some gibberish. Then he literally started grasping his heart – I start to almost panic, thinking he’s having a heart attack. But no no. It’s not enough for him to have a heart attack because of my crappy grades - he has the nerve to, in the midst of my thinking his heart was seizing, play the ultimate guilt card and say “Son....look...at what your grades...are doing...to....your poor mother...” fuuuuuuuuuuck! In a word, kudos. - XMASTIME

Looking back on it now, my father probably spent some time during my youth shaking his head with wonder at me as I'd bring crappy report card after crappy report card home, be it because of "spring fever" or just my general lazy-fair approach to studying.  I even drove him to lighting my report card on fire in front of my first girlfriend.  One report card was so shitty my father insisted I drop out of the 11th grade and join the Army; it took Brothatime!! reminding him that since this wasn't the 1940's, you did need to be a high school graduate to join the Amy to get him to drop the idea.  Especially following in the footsteps of Brothatime!!'s stunning academic success ("Next up, my brother's report card. After washing his hands my dad was allowed to look at it, and after the slow-clap-leading-to-a-full-standing-ovation had died down I felt his eyes on me, waiting for me to present mine."), I'm sure my father was constantly frustrated about what was to become of me.  My personal favorite moment was when he asked what I wanted to do with my life, and I earnestly told him I wanted to play in the NBA.  And that was WHEN I WAS IN THE NINTH GRADE!!!  The horrified look of disappointment on his face was an all-timer.

But I can say, unlike Bin Laden with his sons, he never suggested I become a suicide bomber:

Omar wrote that he had lost faith in his father as a young adult in war-ravaged Afghanistan when Osama suggested that he had his brothers consider taking up suicide bombing in the Taliban's cause. The boys demurred; Omar never got over the request. "My father," he wrote "hated his enemies more than he loved his sons."

I guess I wasn't THAT much of a fuck-up.